Page 1542 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

And suddenly, from the mysterious and awful far-away
world in which he had been living for the last twenty-two
hours, Levin felt himself all in an instant borne back to the
old every-day world, glorified though now, by such a

radiance of happiness that he could not bear it. The
strained chords snapped, sobs and tears of joy which he
had never foreseen rose up with such violence that his
whole body shook, that for long they prevented him from
speaking.
Falling on his knees before the bed, he held his wife’s
hand before his lips and kissed it, and the hand, with a
weak movement of the fingers, responded to his kiss. And
meanwhile, there at the foot of the bed, in the deft hands
of Lizaveta Petrovna, like a flickering light in a lamp, lay
the life of a human creature, which had never existed
before, and which would now with the same right, with
the same importance to itself, live and create in its own
image.
‘Alive! alive! And a boy too! Set your mind at rest!’
Levin heard Lizaveta Petrovna saying, as she slapped the
baby’s back with a shaking hand.
‘Mamma, is it true?’ said Kitty’s voice.
The princess’s sobs were all the answers she could
make. And in the midst of the silence there came in

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